It's a rarity in Washington to see a communications bill that actually serves the public. But a bill Sen. Jay Rockefeller introduced last week is a direct challenge to the communications cabal that controls much of our media in the United States.

Whenever there is an international trade agreement negotiation, Hollywood jumps in, takes over, and starts driving the crazy train off a cliff by demanding all kinds of nonsense in the name of "stopping piracy."

When Google institutes a privacy overhaul in March, what are 350 million Gmail users to do? In the battle against SOPA/PIPA, Internet users got a glimpse of how powerful the participation industry has become.

This is too important to hand over law making to one industry, as Congress did in the case of these bills. Too much is at stake to try to rework the bills in a slapdash manner, behind closed doors. That's the truth.

Like: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band release new single "We Take Care Of Our Own." Instant classic summer song. It makes me want to drive cross country, stopping in every little town and just help people or something.

At first, I thought that SOPA was the right thing to do. But now I am now against it. I've seen the beast face to face, and I now have first hand knowledge of what the large media companies think of the Internet.

Sure, SOPA and PIPA are really destructive, potentially damaging U.S. competitiveness and genuinely killing jobs. However, there's some good news associated with the reaction to the bad law, news that we're missing.

Today's nationwide protest of Internet blacklist legislation is part of a brewing movement to keep control over the Internet out of the hands of corporations and governments. It's a struggle that puts Internet users before information gatekeepers.